Tuesday, May 10, 2016

letter from Alyssa - May 9, 2016

Ponderizing
scripture (this one is a classic) ”Angels speak by the
power of the Holy Ghost;
wherefore, they speak the words
of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you,
feast upon the words
of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ
will tell you all things
what ye should do.“

I am so sorry about my
lack of preparation for talking to you last night! I have been thinking of you
all week and I was just so excited to see you all and talk to you that I just
blanked at first. J But I must say that was
incredible. You all are so awesome!! I tell you all the time but honestly, you
mean so so much to me. And that call was just what I needed.

So an update on the week.

Monday night we went to
Sabrina’s (non-member, long-time friends with Mormons, read entire Book of
Mormon and didn’t feel anything, A LOT of questions about less significant
things, etc.) to give her a birthday gift. She was so happy to see us! But she
wasn’t feeling well, so we’ve kept her in our prayers.

Nick’s birthday was the
same as Casan’s (same family that his sister’s birthday is the same as mine,
and we celebrated together the week before) so we brought over some of the
brownies that we made from the mix you sent me and sang happy birthday to him.
He loved it! He turned 16 but he’s mentally younger because of special needs so
it was really cute.

Transfers were Tuesday so
a lot of changes have happened. Like I said last week and last night they made
me a Sister Training Leader, and I’m still over the music in the mission, and
we got a 3rd companion, still over 2 wards, and we’re temple tour sisters
again so we have things planned every single day. But we have a goal this week
to still make time each day to go out and talk to people, and try to find those
The Lord has prepared or at least do our best to show our faith. This first
week was a bit of a rough start adjusting to it all, but we’re doing so much
better now.

Wednesday we had lunch
with Fernando, he took us to Macaroni Grill. He wanted an update on Jennifer
(recently former investigator, passed to another ward) and thankfully we were
able to settle some concerns and false accusations before they got too far. But
that should be the last we have to deal with that whole situation, and we got a
good free lunch.

Went tracting the other
day and found Stephanie. “Hi, we’re missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints, and we are out sharing a message about how His gospel has
been restored through a living prophet. (doesn’t always go that way, but
something to this effect) Could we teach you more about it?” “Yeah I’d love to
know more,” (we all kind of paused for a sec looking at each other… didn’t
expect that answer and weren’t really sure what to say. But then we figured it
out and decided to share more like we said we would haha.) “Great! Do you know
much about the Book of Mormon?” “Yes, a little, I have a lot of friends that
are Mormon and I’ve wondered about what you all believe. But I have company
coming over in a few minutes, could you come back another day? Maybe this
weekend?” “Sure, anytime that works best for you!” That was an awesome contact.
Not sure I’ve had a contact quite like that before, I wondered if she was a member
or she just knew exactly what we wanted to hear. But we have plans to see her
again and gave her our number.

Bonnie (member, went to
the hospital recently, long-time friend of us sisters) asked us to come over
and get her mail and sheets for her. We visited for a few minutes, then she
surprised us and sent us home with really good steaks. We cooked them the next
day, and when I say really good, they were REALLY good.

One of the days (don’t
remember which one) President Lutz called me and asked me to come the following
morning to Newport Beach to play the piano for an interfaith breakfast on
national prayer day. Did not see that phone call coming. But it was cool
because (even though the preaching was a little weird and scary) we got free breakfast,
and I was totally playing “We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet” and “Joseph
Smith’s First Prayer” for prelude and none of them even noticed except the few
members there. But I got a lot of compliments on how much they enjoyed it, we
all got a laugh out of that!

The Novillos had us for
dinner Thursday. Reminder: Brother Novillo isn’t a member, the rest of the
family is active. I asked him at the end of the night what was keeping him from
being baptized. He told me he could give me the long answer or the short one. I
told him I had as long as he did. So he told me how he grew up in the Catholic
church but never liked it, especially since the leaders were so strict almost
to cruelty. He loves this church and what it does for his kids, but doesn’t
like organized religion much. He says he won’t say he’ll never be baptized. I
asked him to take the discussions or let us read the Book of Mormon with him,
he said he’d think about it. I think I scared his daughter by asking him that
though, he told me he doesn’t get that question ever really.

Janette is doing good, we
text her but haven’t been able to meet with her this week. But the Kuresa’s are
having us over for dinner with her and her family again so that’ll be good!
We’re going to text her today and see how church went.

Friday we had a surprise
party for President and Sister Orgill as a good-bye party. It was quite the
sight to see over 150 missionaries in the cultural hall of the stake center
completely silent while we waited for him to walk in. Then we had dinner and a
lot of fun for the next 5 hours with a bunch of musical numbers, dinner, and
testimonies. It was a wonderful night, there’s probably a lot of pics on the
facebook page.

Julie came and started her
family history! She couldn’t come to church because her son was in town for
mother’s day, but she’s planning on coming the next week.

Sister Clements has been
pretty sick this week with a cold so we didn’t get to do a whole lot, it worked
out ok because I had so many meetings as a new leader at the beginning of the
transfer. But we’re doing all we can to help her recover.

Tara got her temple
recommend to be endowed! Now she just needs to go get clothes and set a date,
she’s looking at early June so we’re hoping it all works out and we could go
with her!

We stopped by the Nixons
and Mulvilles (part-member families with sons on missions) last night after our
skype calls to drop by banana bread and wish them happy mother’s day since they
have missionaries and we are missionaries haha. They loved it.

Thankyou so much for your
email this week, that was wonderful. That was absolutely wonderful. I am so
blessed to have you all as a strength and support, to my testimony, for my
future and plans (or eventual plans), for your love and wanting to be involved
with me and my experiences, I couldn’t thank you enough. Love you Dad! Love you
Mom! Love you Tyler! Love you Kynsie! Love you Landon! Love you Aubrey! And
love you
Casan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!